Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Monday, March 25, 2013

This post was brought to you by Amanda GreenSaving Money With Online Coupon CodesEven though the politicians and economists have been telling us for a couple of years that the recession officially ended quite some time ago, many of us gained money-saving skills and knowledge during that time that we are not going to easily stop using. For instance, plenty of moms and other household managers didn't bother much with coupons until the recession caused a substantial number of shoppers to discover and use new financial strategies like using Brownells coupons as a matter of routine.

How You Can Save By Using Brownells

The best thing about this coupon site is that you can find codes for Brownells for a huge variety of products. Remember that coupons only really save you money when you use them to purchase products that you would normally buy anyway. Brownells offers codes for family apparel, software, party supplies, books, DVDs, cosmetics, housewares and many other items. You can even get codes for automotive supplies and phone cards, and once you start using this service, you'll be amazed at the amount of money that you can save on everyday purchases.

Discount Coupons and Codes for Adobe Products

You'll be able to save money on software products that the kids need for educational projects or to use in your home office by using discount codes for Adobe products. By joining their site, you'll receive significant savings on special deals including the latest technology in cloud computing. Because most modern people need to make at least occasional investments in software, you might as well buy from Adobe and save money on top-quality products.

Other available Adobe products include Photoshop, Creative Suite and Digital Publishing Suite. Adobe also offers training and certification in a variety of business programs.

RetailMeNot

RetailMeNot claims to be the largest coupon site on the Internet, and it is true that they have a giant selection of coupons and special offers. New printable coupons are added on a daily basis, and many of them feature national retailers and restaurant chains that are found in most communities. RetailMeNot also receives an abundance of exclusive offers, and you have the convenience with this site of searching for coupons by individual retailer rather than by product.

ToMuse

If you are looking for a good social group coupon, you should start your search on ToMuse. This site does most of the research for you by providing honest reviews of various group buying sites. Most of these sites offer very short-term deals that quick consumers can save a lot of money by snagging in a timely fashion. They are also an excellent way for small businesses to save on office products, and if you are a merchant, these sites provide you with the chance to get your product noticed by ocal consumers if you choose to offer coupons.

Coupon Cabin

If your household includes furry friends, you're probably always looking for ways to save on pet products such as chew toys, dog and cat beds, food dishes and grooming supplies. Although Coupon Cabin doesn't exclusively offer money-saving opportunities on pet products, they do have an excellent selection of pet-specific items. An example of one of the deals that you can find there is a free pet identification tag from Hartz.

Coupon Cabin also features coupon codes for a substantial number of other household products.

Savings are so easy to find online that it seems silly not to use coupons and promotions whenever possible. By spending just a little time each day searching for deals on items that you plan to purchase, you can save quite a bit of money on household and personal products.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

From left to right:
Easter outfits for the boys from Ross (only $12!), Miss Nova at 15 weeks, cake from PF Changs when I went to lunch with my sister and sister in law, Rowan being cute waiting in the car before Chan gets out of school.

Fun yellow hoodie that Carmex sent for a blogger campaign, Rowan cooling off in the pool in Arizona, Chan on his last day of Jr. Jazz this year, some delicious herbal teas I ordered from Teavana.

Green bagels that they brought around at the hospital on St. Patrick's Day, Dad and Rowan working on Clam Chowder for dinner, Chandler is into making comic books, laying on the couch after an almost 5 mile run.

New movie for the boys (they've watched it more times than I can count), enjoying the sunshine at Neptune Park, new reading material, taking my Garmin out for a run.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

When we bought our town home, we told ourselves we'd be here about 3 years and then we'd sell and find something bigger. We've been here over 4 years. With the baby coming, this has been on my mind even more. I think about climbing all of those stairs after a c-section too and it makes me hurt. Plus, our 3rd bedroom is filled with so much stuff right now and it feels overwhelming to start dejunking it. Marshall and I started toying around with the idea of building or buying somewhere else. Ultimately, I think we are wanting to be in the Herriman area. It's really close to Riverton Hospital where I work and cuts Marshall's commute to 20 minutes. We found a house that we love in a great area. It's right across from a park, within walking distance of the school, rec center and public library, and the school there incorporates leader in me. Leader in me is a program that incorporates Franklin-Covey's 7 habits. Since Marshall works for the company, he'd love to see our kids in a school with this program, and I definitely agree. The house is 5 bedrooms, very new and has a nice big fenced yard. We had kind of planned to pay off debt before the baby was born but I started to feel impatient after finding this house. After talking about it, we decided it is in our best interest to wait. I'm sure we could make it work, but I don't want to have to depend on my income too for a house payment and I really don't want to be house poor. Right now, anything I make is extra and goes to savings, paying debt off, and things for the baby since we got rid of so much after we had Rowan. I also really love being able to eat out, going on family vacations and not feeling overwhelmed with payments. We've decided to be patient and save for another year. It would be nice to have a bigger down payment and have less payments all around.
We also bought this beauty last November, and I'd like to be able to pay it down. Never thought I would say a van is a beauty, but when it's fully loaded with every feature you could ever dream of, it's a beauty. :) It's a Toyota Sienna and we've loved it so far.

I feel a little sad to know that we are probably going to be here in our townhome for another year, but I have to take a step back and count our blessings. I'm grateful to have a home for our family and and everything we need to live comfortably. Marsh and I are going to sit down and make a plan so that we have debts paid down and 3.5-5% saved for a new house by this time next year. Time to be patient.

Back in February, I was invited to be a part of a blogger campaign to discover Scottsdale, Arizona. It's about an 11 hour drive, but I figured it would be a good chance to take a family vacation for cheap. We had a stipend to spend and still spent some out of pocket, but not much. Because the drive was so long, I wish that we would have stayed more than 2 days. We spent half our trip driving. We left Sunday after church and came home Wednesday. Sunday we took a couple detours and it ended up taking us even longer to get there. I can't believe how incredibly patient the boys were and although they got restless at times, they did great. We arrived at like 11 pm and we were all tired and ready to be out of the van. I had booked a hotel on hotwire for $60 a night and it happened to be a place that was probably used as apartments once upon a time since a lot of the suites had full kitchens, living rooms, etc. When we got to our room, the lights were on, it looked like someone had been laying on the bed, there were some food items on the counter. We thought we had walked into someone else's room. They ended up relocating us to a different room with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen, washer/dryer. It was nice! We all had our own beds and the boys loved that they had a room all to themselves. The resort that we
stayed at had 4 different pools, and we had fun swimming in a couple of them.The weather was high 70's and with a heated pool, it was absolutely perfect.

Our first day that we were there, we spent the morning and some of the afternoon at Goldfield Ghost Town. It's about an hour from Scottsdale and has so much to offer. Our first stop was ride the Superstition Narrow Gauge Railroad. It was a 20 minute tour around the Ghost Town were we learned about the town, when it was popular, more about mining and more.

After the railroad, we had a mine tour where we rode down a shaft into a mine. Rowan needed a bit of convincing, I think it reminded him of the Hollywood Tower of Terror at California Adventure. It was a mistake taking him on that ride when we went to Disney last year. He thought it was cool once he realized it wasn't scary. We learned about mining, the tools they used and more.

Next, we were on to the Mystery Shack. This one was really fun and was a house built on angles. You could stand straight up at an angle, water went up instead of down, and brooms stood by themselves. Lastly, we enjoyed lunch at the Mammoth Steakhouse and Saloon. The boys loved the Sarsparillas and lunch was yummy!

After the Ghost Town, we spent the afternoon at the pool.

Our next adventure was to go to Dave & Buster's. It was our first time at a Dave & Busters. I had a steak that was absolutely amazing and the boys had a great time playing games and winning tickets to redeem for prizes. It was definitely a very family friendly place. You can eat and play a lot of really amazing arcade games all in one place. The boys loved getting tickets and redeemed for candy, slinkies and finger lights.

After we left Dave & Busters, I wanted to run over to The Children's Place quickly. I picked out some clothes for Nova (baby girl's name) and I about died at all of the cute little girl's stuff. I'm having a hard time not going overboard and I already have 2 big bags full of clothes for her from Children's Place, Carters and Gymboree. Needless to say, she's going to be one spoiled little girl.

The next day, we headed to the Phoenix zoo. There was so much to offer there. We were there for 4 hours and the boys were so tired from walking although we hadn't seen everything. We rode around the zoo with a guided tour, got to touch sting rays, and rode the carousel multiple times.

We couldn't leave Scottsdale without heading downtown to see what it was all about. It had a country western feel and is nice and clean. We grabbed some sweets at The Sugar Bowl and they definitely did not disappoint!

Wednesday we spent the day driving and made good time. It was such a fun family vacation!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

If you are on Facebook, chances are that you already know what the gender of the baby is! If you don't, you'll have to watch the vlog below. This pregnancy seems to be dragging, but I know it's because I'm impatient. Growing, gaining and still waiting to feel baby move.